The Icelandic flight was very nice -- my only surprise being one had to pay for food. If I had known that we would have eaten something at the airport. We did get a very good sandwich, but the price was $6.00 each, so the sticker shock for European food prices started there.
The plane was very nice -- and very full. We were lucky to have snagged last minute seats. It was primarily full of a tour group of people even older than me! -- all wearing name tags. I surely don't want to travel that way.
Here is Naj sleeping on the plane. We were in a row of three seats, but only two of us, so I moved over the aisle and she enjoyed stretching out to sleep. Don't think I slept very much. Notice the window is light. We were flying through the land of the midnight sun. We left Minnesota one hour late at 8:30 PM, and landed at 6:40 AM in Iceland. It really didn't get dark at all during the flight during the mid-summer time.
Our next flight out was 7:45, so probably why I didn't sleep much was a nagging concern if we were going to make since we started out an hour late. At the Iceland airport we followed the signs for transferring to other European flights. We had to go through security again. The sign said this was because the EU was more stringent than other places. Well I don't know about that, but I don't know all the other places from which the flights arrive, and outer border areas such as Iceland have a special duty to protect the EU border areas. Once through security -- and I got a special pat down, I think because the sparkly things on my shirt set off the alarm -- we hit passport control. We went immediately to the gate for our flight and got into the line for boarding. Again the plane was really full and we were lucky to have gotten the seats.
The little I saw of Iceland makes me want to come back to see and learn more. The terrain is wild! covered the rocks and boulders with a beautiful stalky purple flower growing everywhere. In the distance I think I could see a geyser. I've had this naggy desire to do a stop over in Iceland and now after experiencing the nice flights with Icelandic Air and seeing a bit of Iceland that desire is popping up more.
In Copenhagen we got a bit of lunch and again European, Scandinavian airport food prices caused me a bit of sticker shock. The gate for our Warsaw flight was not posted so we wandered about a bit looking at the shops and then sat down in a Starbucks seating area. Naj wanted to use the power from my computer to charge her Nano. When the posting of the gate for Warsaw finally showed up, we were in exactly the right place. The gate was about 20 feet away. We could simply stay at the Starbucks until the agent appeared and starting the boarding process. This was Najale's first experience with taking a bus to the plane. This flight was about half full, and I'm curious to know who are fellow passengers were for I thought no one looked "Polish." Again we took the bus to the terminal and waited maybe only five minutes for our luggage.
We walked across the street to the Marriott Hotel at the airport. So nice to be able to crash so quickly. We actually stuck it out until into the early evening, first going downstairs to eat a bit. The hotel is the home place for an international fencing tournament for persons with a physical disability, so the people watching around here is amazing. Just in a short walk across the lobby I saw people from Russia, Thailand, and Belarus. When we were going to dinner we came across a man using a wheelchair trying to push a cart with his luggage. Najale wanted to know what she should do. I told her one always asks if the person wants help. First he asked me if she could better balance his fencing equipment on the cart, she offered to push the cart to his room, and came back to report he was from California.
The luggage all of these athletes have for their fencing equipment is about bit more than one meter long and shaped somewhat like a bag one used to travel when carrying golf clubs. However, we got in the elevator last evening with an athlete who uses a wheelchair and she had two swords tucked on either side of the seat. Quite an amazing thing to stumble into.
Naj's other grandmother told her she would starve in Poland because she is such a picky eater. I told her she would be just fine, since she liked bread, meat and potatoes! Last night she looked at the menu and asked if she could have the pasta with shrimp.
I crashed in bed and then woke up later to chase a teenager off Facebook to bed around 11:00 PM. She said she was Facebook chatting her mom.
We had planned to take the 175 bus to downtown Warsaw this morning, but the weather is cloudy, foggy, and it looks like everyone is wearing jacket so it must be cool. We are simply going to have a slow day, taking the train to Siedlce later this afternoon.
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